Your Right to Know

Ohioans will get the chance to decide in November whether the state should significantly alter
the way it draws congressional and legislative districts.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted tonight certified a constitutional amendment for the Nov.
6 ballot that, if passed, would change a system of gerrymandering that is more than 4 decades old.

Voters First, a coalition that includes the League of Women Voters and is backed by Democrats
and a variety of union supporters, turned in 406,514 valid signatures, getting it over the required
threshold of 385,253 signatures needed to make the ballot — 10 percent of the total cast for
governor in 2010.

“This is very exciting,” Catherine Turcer, Voters First chairwoman, said tonight. “So many
people came together to get this done. This is a reform that will really transform the system. It’s
a real challenge to the power structure. In a winner-take-all system, the winners really like the
system we have. But it really is time to put the voters in the driver’s seat.”

Husted determined that Voters First had collected an additional 151,889 valid signatures by
the July 28 deadline after an initial foray fell short.

On July 18, the secretary of state certified 254,625 valid signatures for the proposed
amendment, about 130,000 short of the requirement. Husted also found that the group’s initial
petitions failed to meet the threshold of having 5 percent of the 2010 vote cast in each of 44 of
88 counties. Voters First qualified in only 34 counties.

But over an extra 10-day period allowed for gathering more signatures, Voters First met or
exceeded the 5percent threshold in 60 counties.

Under the current redistricting system, the political party controlling the Statehouse
redraws legislative and congressional districts after every decennial federal census.

The Voters First plan sets forth a process for selecting a 12-member Ohio Citizens
Independent Redistricting Commission, which would draw new congressional and legislative districts
for the 2014 election, and then redraw them after each census. Backers say the commission would be
composed in such a way as not to favor one party over another. Current and former officeholders or
family members, lobbyists and big donors would be prohibited from serving.

The Ohio Republican Party opposes the proposed amendment. The party controls 13 of Ohio’s 18
congressional seats and has overwhelming majorities in the 99-member state House and 33-member
Senate. The new districts that the GOP drew to be effective in 2013 for the rest of the decade are
expected to preserve the party’s majorities, including among the congressional delegation to be
elected from 16 newly drawn districts.

Protect Your Vote Ohio, a GOP-backed organization created to defeat the amendment, issued a
statement tonight attacking it as flawed, noting that almost $2 million was spent by labor unions
and “liberal special-interest groups to pay for petition circulators.”

“We expect proponents will continue to tell Ohio voters that this plan is an effort to remove
partisan politics and special interests from the line-drawing process,” said Jenny Camper,
spokeswoman for Protect Your Vote. “However, the facts don’t lie. Recent finance reports which
reveal funding by and large from unions and liberal organizations, and the fact that these same
groups comprise the majority of the amendment’s supporters, tell us that the amendment is designed
by liberal special interests to change Ohio’s constitution for their own partisan gain.”

Turcer said Voters First anticipates that the GOP and its officeholders will raise millions
of dollars for a campaign “to run ads that oppose good systemic reform. But we wouldn’t have taken
this on if we weren’t ready for this challenge. Voters are tired of the general dysfunction of
government, and they want to see something that works better.”